The UK’s EU current membership costs us at least 500,000 jobs

Previously we looked at the main ways which cause us to lose jobs as a result of belonging to the EU on current membership terms. Today I want to come up with a prudent estimate of just how many jobs being in the EU costs us.

The main cause of job loss is in manufacturing. Dear energy has led to the closure of petrochemical plants, aluminium smelting, steel and other heavy energy using capacity. It has meant we do not even produce all our own power, importing some from France via the interconnector. If we had US levels of energy prices on the back of more domestic production of oil, gas and shale gas and German style coal fired power stations, we could have 15% more jobs in manufacturing or around 450,000 extra jobs.

We would also have more jobs in energy. That could be around 10% more or 50,000 extra jobs.

Agriculture and fishing has been constrained by quotas and the rules of the CAP and Common Fisheries Policy. Domestic policies could add 10% or 30,000 jobs in those sectors.

Adding it up produces a figure in excess of 500,000 more jobs if the UK had more sway over its own industry, energy production and business regulation. There could also be further gains in services, the biggest area in our labour market.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

107 Comments

When the basic material manufacture moves overseas, the fabrication of aluminium, steel, and plastic components may well follow. The ability of UK residents to work in the EU has been questioned if we leave. It doesn’t seem to make much difference to Swiss and Norwegians, who work for EU firms. The biggest scientific research programme in the World is CERN, where the protons travel in and out of the EU close to the speed of light.

Membership of the EU is not about jobs, its about who makes the rules. And as the EU makes the rules for all its members, and expects them to turn these rules into National Law, its here that we must look.

If we were outside the EU, which is a POLITICAL PROJECT, we would not be subject to its rules internally. Yes, we would have to comply with the rules of the Single Market when trading with them like China, but many of those rules are made on an international level on which we would have a say, like China. Further, being members of the EEA would, allow us to influence the rules of the EEA at an early stage, so basically giving us a second bite of the cherry.

The EU and the other 27 members would still be able to trade with the UK as before, so long as we maintained membership of the Single Market. That means that the threat of job losses, both in the UK and on the Continent, are not valid.

Being able to make our own rules makes trading internally much easier and more competitive. We would be able to grow internally and attract investment. We would make more things that we can sell to the outside world, including the EU. Not only would energy be cheaper, but also food. This would help those on low incomes and, help to raise the standard of living.

It is no coincidence that countries like Switzerland, Norway and Iceland, three of the richest countries in Europe, do not wish to join the EU. They do not wish to surrender their independence and the means to control their economy and wealth. That is why Iceland is well and truly on the road to recovery, and Greece is still in a mess.

Yes, we would have to comply with the rules of the Single Market when trading with them like China, but many of those rules are made on an international level on which we would have a say, like China.

We already have a say on these international rules and the rules the Single Market uses are much more strict because the EU contains fewer developing nations.

Further, being members of the EEA would, allow us to influence the rules of the EEA at an early stage, so basically giving us a second bite of the cherry.

1) As the UK is represented by the UK and the EU at these meetings we won;t gain any benefits from being a member of the EEA.

2) How are we getting a “second bite of the cherry” by joining the EEA when we’ll only be able to influence these rules at an international level but not in the European Parliament? Isn’t this more like only getting one bite of the cherry?

3) EEA member have to obey almost all EU laws.

The EU and the other 27 members would still be able to trade with the UK as before, so long as we maintained membership of the Single Market.

The EU’s requirement for access to the single market is obeying EU law.

Being able to make our own rules makes trading internally much easier and more competitive.

Except we won’t be able to do this because being part of the EEA means having to obey EU law.

We would make more things that we can sell to the outside world, including the EU.

How is being in the EU preventing us from doing this?

It is no coincidence that countries like Switzerland, Norway and Iceland, three of the richest countries in Europe, do not wish to join the EU.

Iceland is currently trying to join the EU. Also according to GDP per capita the richest country in the world is Luxembourg, which is a member of the EU.

That is why Iceland is well and truly on the road to recovery, and Greece is still in a mess.

I’d say it has more to do with Iceland not being such a mess before the 2008 financial crisis.

“So the image of EEA members meekly incorporating EU edicts as they roll off the fax machine from Brussels is a straightforward fallacy.”

“Then there is the Norwegian example. There was a similar question raised in the Norwegian parliament in 2004 about how much EU legislation had been implemented under EEA terms. The then-government replied that over the period 1997-2003 there had been 11,511 pieces of legislation adopted by the EU. Of those 2,129 fell under the EEA Agreement, or about 18.5 percent. As recently as August 2010, Norwegian sovereignty campaigners Nei til EU released their own research covering the years 2000-2009, and according to their statistical analysis the national share ran at a rate of merely 8.9 percent.”

“Norwegians must meet EU standards when they sell to the EU – as exporters the world over must do. But they are spared the expense of having to apply most of these regulations to their domestic commerce. You will sometimes hear that Norway has to assimilate thousands of EU laws, but these laws are generally of a technical and trivial nature. The 3,000 EU legal acts adopted in Norway since 1992 have required only 50 statutes in the Storting. And the people who make such a fuss of these 3,000 regulations neglect to mention the 24,000 that Britain has had to incorporate over the same period.”

3000 divided by 24,000 = 12.5%.

Just as in the case of attempts to calculate the proportion of our new laws which are determined by the EU, attempts to calculate the proportion of EU laws that Norway is obliged to adopt under the EEA Agreement are fraught with uncertainties, but it should be perfectly clear even to you that by no stretch of the imagination can it be described as “almost all”.

Tell Spain, Italy Portugal, and Greece about your ridiculous comments. The straight jacket of the EU is killing industry, jobs and thereby creating destitution. Look at the amount of people who have left these countries to find work elsewhere. Utter drivel once more Uni. It really does not wash, a bit like Clegg saying 1.5 million UK people lived abroad a if they were working, they are not they are retired and no cost to the host countries as they have contributory benefit systems unlike the auk which is a honey pot for the EU and the rest of the world.

Hope- you are showing your ignorance – my son lives and works in a softeware company in Berlin (they speak English in the office) and is surrounded by other Brits – the French alps are now full of British ski instructors etc. 10,000 Brits claim unemployment benefits in Germany alone – more Brits claim benefits in other EU countries than EU citizens claim in the UK.
Please do some research and get your facts right.

No because it would continue after political detachment. As it is Europe sells us more by value than we sell them. Do you really believe that the CEOs of Mercedes, BMW, Opel, Ford, VW, Renault, Citroen PAS, Fiat and all the other support industries that sell to our own car industry would allow their businesses to be damaged by the likes of Barosso and Rumpuy . They would soon be told what to do with their playground games.

Do you really believe that the CEOs of Mercedes, BMW, Opel, Ford, VW, Renault, Citroen PAS, Fiat and all the other support industries that sell to our own car industry would allow their businesses to be damaged by the likes of Barosso and Rumpuy .

Well they haven’t objected to tariffs being put on the USA and China even though there countries are much larger markets than the UK.

Well it could be tariff free trade anyway outside the EU as with Switzerland/Norway. Even if it were not we could replace the things we import and export from the EU with home made goods or other world markets. Perhaps just buying fewer BMWs and Mercedes.

They need to export to us rather more than we do to them.

Huge numbers of jobs are lost due to the absurd employment laws, the enforced equality drivel. Also fools like Cable, thinking that they can decide who runs businesses and their gender (businesses that he has never even seen) better than the existing directors and shareholders.

The net loss of jobs is hugely higher than 500,000. We could reduce energy prices hugely. Making some industries 10%-20% more efficient might well enable them to grow to 4 or more times the size rather than have to close or move. Just reduce parasitic government all over, reduce energy prices, have easy hire and fire, easier planning, selective immigration, reduced regulation everywhere, abolish IHT, reduce taxes and watch the economy grow. The problem now is the vision Labour in 2015 will kill it anyway.

We have the longest tax legislation in the world (Even in 2009 it was reported that the UK tax code had exceeded that of India and, at 11,520 was the longest in the world). Simplify it get out of the EU and cut the endless parasitic jobs in tax planning, bureaucrats & tax lawyers. Simplify and cut these rates and release them all to get a productive job for a change.

50% of the UK’s exports go to the EU and 10% of the EU’s exports go to the UK. So we need them much more than they need us.

Huge numbers of jobs are lost due to the absurd employment laws, the enforced equality drivel.

The UK has the third most lax employment laws in the OECD, so if strict employment laws result in job losses then the UK should be able to attract investment from almost all of the OECD countries. Yet whenever international companies need to reduce their workforce most of the cuts fall on the easy to fire UK workforce.

We could reduce energy prices hugely.

How? All the coal power plants that have been closed can’t be reopened and most nuclear plants are approaching the end of their productive life.

Making some industries 10%-20% more efficient might well enable them to grow to 4 or more times the size rather than have to close or move.

How are you going to make these industries more efficient? Surely if they were efficient they’d need less energy, not more energy.

JR is Cameron arrogant, out of touch or stupid to make remarks that the public do not want an EU referendum now, only when he says if he gets elected? Why did he force a three line whip to prevent a referendum in 2012 and why does he think the public’s view has changed. His stance is making him and your party an irrelevance. Moreover people distrust him even further. If he has not already done so he is entering Gordon Brown popularity territory, irrespective what he might think about polls or focus groups.

We all know the true intention of the EU is not about trade or commerce, it is about creating an EU superstate and to rid nation states of their identity, culture and customs by stealth to help negate any resistance to the takeover. Why would a commerce body need an FCO and someone like Ashton? Why would it need. A social policy, a judicial system and a host of other bodies that have no link to commerce and trade.

Cameron and Hague are out of touch with the public mood and the MSM is doing its best to limit damage to public opinion to leave the EU. Too little too late, people see immigration as the epitome of everything wrong with the EU when the government cannot stop the quantity or quality of people coming here and have no ability of getting rid of undesirables either. It shows a lack of control and ability to govern.

Today we learn the IMF will help a bail our of the Ukraine, what is our contribution to this revolutionary government with no legitimate mandate?

Reply Mr Cameron is an intelligent man who well knows many of us want a referendum. He leads the only party to be offering us a referendum after the next election. He has asked all Conservative MPs to vote for a Bill to secure such a referendum, which we have done, only to be blocked in the Lords.The Conservatives are far from being an irrelevance. The latest polls for the GE show the Conservatives very close to Labour in the polls, and both miles ahead of other parties.

Take a look at this map; notice that Norway and Switzerland are a healthy green colour, whereas we, together with Eastern and Southern Europe, are a dirty brown. Germany has a pleasing green complexion which it will presumably wish to maintain if we decide to leave the EU.

(wrong ref ed)
It is time to let your students in a poorly kept secret: countries can be out with the EU, but in with bilateral trade.

So you think that spending a fortune and losing jobs to maintain what is a negative trade balance with the eussr is more important than our much larger positive trade balance outside of it then James? It is easy to pluck a figure out of the air and claim we trade with that number of people but the truth is that we do not trade with every single citizen of the eussr some are children, some prefer their own nations produce, and why is it that some people seem to think that you have to be a member of the eussr to trade with it?

Don’t have to be in the EU to trade with it. Ask China who have 30 million jobs linked to that trade. It is and always been a political construct to create a state called Europa by stealthy incremental steps. Lying, deceiving and scaring the public should we want our freedom and democracy back

Switzerland are closer to the EU than us. They have pegged the Swiss Franc to the Euro. ie. they have taken the additional forex risk variable out of the trade equation. You don’t get closer than that.

And this notion that Norway is booming due to being out the EU fails to see the elephant standing in the corner. Norway has so much oil per capita that they are set for life no matter how badly they run their economy.

James, do you honestly believe that the EU is willing to enter into a trade war with the United Kingdom? They will be cutting off their nose to spite their face, and providing our economy with a much-needed tonic. We have a negative balance of trade with Europe. This means that they need our market more than we need theirs. We don’t really need 500 million poverty stricken Euro-toytown customers, when we can have 1 billion Chinese and 300 million American customers, and that is not even considering the rest of the world. Contrary to what the EU would have us believe, the Earth does not revolve around Europe. In fact, it is better thought of as the Earth’s anus.

We have a negative balance of trade with Europe. This means that they need our market more than we need theirs.

No it doesn’t. 10% of the EU’s exports go to the UK but 50% of the UK’s exports go to the EU. So we need the EU more than they need us.

We don’t really need 500 million poverty stricken Euro-toytown customers, when we can have 1 billion Chinese and 300 million American customers, and that is not even considering the rest of the world.

Half our exports go to 27 countries and the other half go to the rest of the world. So it would be unwise to alienate our largest trade partner. Especially since other countries don’t seem so keen on buying more products from the UK.

“James, do you honestly believe that the EU is willing to enter into a trade war with the United Kingdom?”

These are our “partners”, foreign countries with which we have such warm and friendly relations that we are perfectly content to allow them a large say in how our own country is run, right down to the smallest details of our everyday lives.

That’s unless we decided that we didn’t want to continue any further with the EEC/EC/EU project to create a pan-European federation in which we would be legally subordinated, when they would instantly turn into nasty vindictive irrational people imposing a total blockade on all our exports, throwing millions of Britons out of work and bringing us to our knees until we pleaded to be let back in and promised to do what they said, and they would do that despite knowing that it would throw even more millions out of work in their own countries.

It is hard to say how people like Clegg and uanime5 can genuinely believe both of these incompatible propositions at the same time; but apparently according to them our choice is between being controlled by neighbours who pretend to be our friends while behind the mask of friendship they are really our enemies, or being economically destroyed by them in a fit of irrational pique because we have refused to be controlled by them.

The European Free Trade Area (efta) covers at present Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Lichenstein. We are a very important market for Europe, they sell more to us than we do to them. The trade deficit is around £3bn per month. There is no reason to suppose we would be unable to negotiate a position similar to the Swiss or Norwegians and remain members of efta.
I am old enough to have voted in the 1975 referendum on Europe, and I voted to stay in. At the time, I thought I was voting for Britain to be part of a European free-trade area – back then we called it “The Common Market”. It turns out I was sold a false prospectus, the politicians and media of the day were lying to us.
That is why we need another referendum and that is why I shall vote – as I thought I was doing last time – for Britain to belong to a European free-trade area. And we can achieve this by leaving the EU forthwith.

No. Sorry, you are wrong. “…members of EFTA have to obey almost all EU law…” cobblers. They are sovereign countries and they make their own law.
It is perfectly true to say that those persons and companies who are doing business with the E.U. will have to comply with E.U. standards and regulations, just as persons or companies doing business with the USA, or China, or Japan must comply with the standards and regulations required by those marketplaces.
On the other hand, those persons and companies who are not doing business with the E.U. will no longer have to comply with E.U. regulation if they choose not to – a big advantage.

We are currently paying £55,000,000 per day, plus all sorts of other extras like bail outs and social security payments……..

This customs union is anything but “free”.

Were we to leave tomorrow they would not be happy about the loss of this money….But one thing is for sure: Trade war? Not a cat in hells chance. The Bigger EU countries would economically disintegrate without our custom. Germany isn’t the only country capable of producing machine tool and cars you know? We might decide to purchase from Japan, USA , China , South Korea…………Or even our own.

The Bigger EU countries would economically disintegrate without our custom.

50% of the UK’s exports go to the EU, but only 10% of the EU’s exports go to the UK. So the EU will be able to survive without the UK but the UK will have major problems.

Germany isn’t the only country capable of producing machine tool and cars you know? We might decide to purchase from Japan, USA , China , South Korea…………Or even our own.

Given all the tariffs we have with USA , China , and South Korea importing machine tool and cars from these countries will be more expensive than buying them from Germany. Also people will only buy UK products if they’re a comparable quality and price.

John, I acknowledge your expertise, but when you consider the total devastation of our fishing industry, the people, skills and capital equipment (ships) lost to the industry forever, many fleets shut down entirely and the ones that are running are vastly reduced, I would say that your figure of only 10% is excessively generous to the EU.

“I did not call Mr Clegg a liar, as I think he believes the lie he tells.”

He must be very dim then. But he did only study social anthropology so I suppose it is possible. What about the clearly planned sophistry of “50% of our exports go to the EU and only 8% of their come to the UK”?

Do you think Ed Davy believes the endless drivel that he spouts too? Or did Chris Huhne – I find that very difficult that believe.

Well, if he genuinely believes it then by definition it is not a lie. It is an untruth, a falsehood, an incorrect or misleading statement, whatever, but it is not a lie unless he knows that it is untrue but nonetheless deliberately says it as though it was true. However I don’t accept that anyone in his position and with his previous career background in two of the EU institutions could really be unaware that what he was saying was not true.

Reply Throwing unpleasant adjectives at people does little to advance public debate or the causes you believe in. I did not call Mr Clegg a liar, as I think he believes the lie he tells.
Thanks Mr Redwood.

It’s been widely reported that the report on which the 3 million jobs claim was based on, had been deliberately misinterpreted by the pro EU camp. I know of no credible evidence to support the 3 million jobs dependency claim of any substance.
I find it hard to believe that Mr Clegg, (with his level of education and access to information) does not realise this.
So either Mr Nicholas Clegg is incompetent and unfit for office , or he is a liar in my view.

I don’t agree – any prime minister that inflicts the sort of damage that Major did deserves nothing but our scorn. If we cannot be honest about the mistakes of the past we are bound to repeat them (as your party did when you elected another dripping wet Major clone,David Cameron)
The Conservative party won 14 million votes in 1992..and after 5 years of Major , the Conservatives suffered a very heavy and damaging defeat which your party and the country in general have still not recovered from. All from a series of petulant schoolboy errors by Major.

Major was responsible for the worst excesses of New Labour – if he hadn’t left Conservative forces so demoralised and split the worst excesses of New Labour could have been better resisted.

Even when the country was left virtually a basket case by Labour, your party was unable to secure a working majority.

What was wrong with Ted? As a 9 year old I quite enjoyed the power cuts and the opportunity it gave to avoid school. However no TV after ten was a bit of a nuisance. Mrs Thatcher was a bigger threat to my well being. By the time she was given the push, the state was helping itself to more of my money that it did in ’79. When I bought my first house interest rates were around 12per cent and for a lot longer than a couple of days at 15per cent with Lamont. With the sale of Amersham Int she got the ball rolling with rip off (for the tax payer anyway) privatisations. Oh yes and who signed the Maastricht Treaty?

Mr. Clegg’s claim of the three million jobs that would be lost if the United Kingdom left the EU has survived boom and bust unchanged. No matter the size of our economy, the figure of three million stands out like a three hundred foot high lighthouse on the White Cliffs of Dover . It is a warning to Eurosceptics of the peril that they will face if they dare to question EU membership.

This static figure remains whatever else changes and as a result becomes more absurd the longer that Mr Clegg repeats his claim in his parrot- fashioned way to the British public.

Thank you for providing in five short paragraphs the real cost of continuing to remain inside an unreformed EU. I am at present in Mr Farage’s UKIP camp but Mr Cameron’s approach to change across Europe is beginning to pay dividends.

Mr Clegg believes that he is being forward looking and sensible in his claims but in reality he is wrong and his fortress in Brussels is beginning to crumble. The quicker it collapses completely the better.Common sense, that can be explained in five short paragraphs, will return and we will be able to adopt policies that fight boom, bust and whatever else we will face in the years to come.

Our politicians in the UK buy into the climate change mantra and are quite happy to levy these charges and funnel subsidies to vested interests on our behalf. I do not believe a Conservative administration or before them a Labour one would have kept energy costs lower even without being mandated to increase costs by EU rules.

The reason we are still in the EU is because its ethos fits the Establishment’s agenda.

As I understand it once a member state leaves the EU under Art. 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, a continuing Free-trade deal with the 27 other countries is mandatory. The”trade” arguments therefore, for remaining in the EU, are an irrelevance.

Turkey and Mexico have a free-trade deal with the EU without any of the political and regulatory baggage that comes with membership.

The EuroZone must create a unitary state in order to make their currency survive. our destiny lies elsewhere.

Turkey and Mexico have a free-trade deal with the EU without any of the political and regulatory baggage that comes with membership.

Turkey is in a custom union with the EU, and two of the conditions of this custom union are implementing all laws made by the EU and not making any laws contrary to EU laws. So Turkey does have all the regulatory baggage that comes with membership.

Mexico agreed to a “Generalised Scheme of Preferences” with the EU which has resulted in some tariffs being removed. Though Mexico does have to obey some EU employment laws. They also can’t buy or sell weapons to the EU.

Clegg tells us that if we leave the EU, three million jobs will be lost. You tell us that half a million jobs are being lost because of the EU. I tend to take the view that if we’d restricted immigration, we would now have virtually full employment on the basis that there are more people working in the UK than ever before.
The LibDems prefer to express our exports to Europe as a percentage of our GDP and the imports as a percentage of the (much larger) European GDP, making it appear that we export more than we import, others refer to the monetary value where imports are clearly more than exports.
Figures, which are often contradictory, are being thrown at us all the time. No wonder the electorate are confused and many, probably the majority, don’t understand what is going on, particularly give the poor state of our maths education over the past couple of decades.

OK, so we get an extra 50,000 jobs in the energy business; that will halfway compensate for the jobs that were lost when you privatised gas and electricity. Oh and look what a success that has been.

Dear energy is not the problem in production industries; poor productivity IS; caused by a low skill base. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25200808 . Too many mickey mouse Universities generating graduates who struggle to put a USB plug the right way up in a laptop. Not enough Technical Colleges and Polytechnics doing “day release” and “sandwich” courses for skilled trade and technician apprentices. Like it used to be!

These problems were made in the UK; nothing to do with the EU. Start thinking like the Germans, a single market of 500 million is not to be sniffed at. Particularly if the EU – US bilateral trade (TTIP) agreement comes off. The US is a big export market for the UK and it will have to be inside that tariff barrier. There are two sides to every balance sheet, so stop pretending we can get the EU assets without getting the liabilities.

The biggest cause of poor productivity is money printing. Papering over productivity inefficiencies by lowering export prices to gain market share by printing money. This is the fools method of running an economy. Short sighted, short term and ultimately the path to ruin. These Tories are so focused on the next election that they are prepared to sacrifice the country to get elected. The rest are no better.

If we’re discussing how jobs are lost due to regulation how about your own governments minimum wage laws, Mr Redwood?
What about the onerous taxation on jobs?
Not to mention the all the other employment legislation that just in the industrial estate my business is located in costs a dozen jobs. That is not just a made up government statistic. It is based on real life business. I would employ three extra people, my next door neighbour another two, the car sales lot up the road would like two or three. None of us will employ those people because of the severe costs and risks involved.
This country has been taken from one of the richest and freest places on earth to a centrally planned socialist tax farm in the space of a hundred years. It’s not just the EU that has done that.

John sorry but you are beginning to sound like Wokingham’s answer to Kim Jong Un. He blames the economic deprivation of the Korean people on the evil machinations of the Yankee imperialists. With you instead its all the fault of the EU or the Lib Dems being a millstone around Dave’s neck. Sorry but its not the case, both economies are held back by the devotion of a parasitic elite to a failed ideology. In the UK we cannot deviate away from “free enterprise” by burdening the energy companies with regulation and all that money printing does not help keep fuel costs low either.

Its more free enterprise and open competitive markets we need for prosperity not the centralised left wing elitist superstate the original Common Market has morphed into.
The multi national plc’s you rightly criticise love the EU.

Yes but if you are a transnational corp you love the Westminster elite even more. It was not the EU who told Brown to bail the banks out, it was not the EU who gave us a limp wristed regulator in OFGEM and it was not the ECB who tells the BoE to print at a rate only just behind the Japs the world leaders in money printing. JR is being economic with the actualite. I would prefer to be in the heart of Europe where fuel prices are lower rather the UK, where with its demented obsession with neo-lib economics, they are the highest

I love your “heart of Europe” statement, I thought even euro fanatics had given up on that one.
One vote out of 28 with just a few paying in and the majority taking out and no veto means no democratic control.

As @lojolondon has said I think you are being vwry conservative on the Fishing Industry jobs alone. Its not just the fishermen – its the whole supply chain that goes with it. I’ve heard estimates of over 100k in this alone.

You say that the EU us costing us jobs, implying that it is because of expensive EU energy, then you note that we should produce cheap coal fired energy like Germany. !? So which is it ?

We are the architects of our own expensive energy. France has no energy problems, unlike us, they had the foresight to build nuclear and now export energy to us. Germany uses cheap coal. The blame for our energy problems do not lie with the EU, were it not for us importing energy from the same EU, we would be huddled around camp fires.

more rhetoric, no matter how accurate your information on any subject concerning the effects of the EU on the UK, nothing can or will be done about it by the sham conservative party now in government led by a man dedicated to retaining our membership, and to growing the EU in such a way that further detriment will be achieved. Your task as things stand is as hopeless as you often say UKIPs is, so the value of a vote for either is, it could be said, equal, but on the very bassist of reasons a vote for someone who is promising something you know you will get, as opposed to the opposite, is surely better.

Mr Redwood, I am slightly curious about something. In yesterday’s DT Dan Hodges wrote about the Clegg-Farage debate:
“There will also have been anger and alarm [in Downing Street] at the site [sic] of prominent Tory Eurosceptics such as John Redwood roaming the post-debate spin room, banging the drum for the Ukip leader.”
However you are – of course – in the Conservative Party and have always denigrated UKIP as having no seats in the HoC, nor ever likely to. So have you experienced a Damascene conversion or does Mr. Hodges have his facts wrong?

Get off …. JR, apart from a couple of heresies on gay marriage and climate change denial, is the very model of a Cameron Conservative. Ask him, as I have in the past for example, now that the war in Kosovo is over and its an independent state, should those Kosovans earlier granted asylum, particularly the ones who living on benefits, should be sent back home and see what answer you get.

John Redwood is a true Conservative through and through and solid on all the big issues ….so in essence there is but a cigarette paper between his position and Nigel Farage.
But he has learned from nearly 40 years in politics how to play the political game………….
Sometime he speaks from conviction. Sometimes with an eye on the changing demographics of his 13,000 majority in Wokingham which often seems to involve moving to the centre ground… much to the disgust of most of his readers.
Personally I think people are crying out for more purely conviction driven politicians that don’t censor themselves every time they make a statement by trying to appear more politically correct.

That is what happens when one section of society decides how other sections of it must behave and under what conditions. In this case it is non wealth creators in fact wealth consumers creating an environment that is very suitable for them but very harmful for everyone else. In the private sector this is a condition that is well known as a business has many departments all of which have different objectives. If one department gains the upper hand then eventually that business fails so management work together to maintain balance and to optimise the efficiency of the business. The public sector and governments do not and cannot work like that because there is no incentive to do so as the profit motive is removed and because political and vested interests rise to dominance and policies and practices are not based on practicalities but ideologies and corrupting influences.

Being in (or out) of the EU has precisely and exactly zero implications for total numbers employed. Indeed if the entire world apart from the UK disappeared under the sea, total numbers employed in the UK would not be changed one iota.

Reason is that numbers employed can easily be increased simply by raising demand, and the only constraint on that is inflation. And there are no reasons for thinking that being in or out of the EU causes inflation to kick in at a higher or lower level of employment.

Unemployment is caused by the spending power, or aggregate demand in economics parlance, in an economy being less than is needed to buy up all the available goods and services which are for sale in that economy. That can be caused for two reasons.

Firstly, the spenders in that economy may consider, overall, they get better value for money by buying in someone else’s economy. They may prefer to buy an overseas product rather than a local product for example. This is largely a function of the exchange rate in that economy. If the exchange rate is too high importing goods will make more economic sense for the spenders.

Secondly, there may be not enough spenders. Some earners may choose to save their money. Earners aren’t just wage and salary earners. Its anyone who has made money , by whatever means, by trading in that economy. Earnings would include the profits of businesses.

Governments have to borrow from the savers and spend that money back into the economy by deficit spending to ensure that everything which is available for sale, this includes the labour of any individual, is cleared. They also have to decide what to do about any trade imbalance. Do they issue bonds to overseas buyers and spend the proceeds back into their economies by deficit spending ? If not, do they wish to see their currency adjust to a natural market value?

The countries of the Eurozone are trapped. Either the Euro works well for them or it doesn’t. It works well for Germany and the Netherlands but not at all well for Greece or Spain.

But what about the UK? They are out of the Euro. Can they blame the EU for unemployment? Unemployment is much less in the UK that it would have been had the UK decided to join the Euro. It was very sensible to retain the right to be an issuer of its own currency , rather a user of someone else’s currency. That gave it much better freedom and ability to decide its own economic status.

It also means that unemployment in the UK is really no-one else’s fault other than its own. It isn’t like Spain or Greece. It still has control over its own economy. If it wants to devalue the £ it can. If it wants to balance its external trade , it can. If it wants to deficit spend to achieve full employment, it can.

But the UK apparently cannot restrict the flow of external job seekers which is another key factor in unemployment and is an apparent a problem of EU membership. I say apparent as other countries seem able to pick and chose what laws affected them in the past – eg Belgium with Roma, France and Germany’s move to suspend free movement in 2012.

In effect the Euro countries are able to shovel their welfare burden on to us independent of whether our government controls the target economy or currency, This suggests trying to improve employment rates without being more restrictive in non-monetary areas is a total and utter waste of time.

There is naturally a tendency of a migration of populations towards regions of lower employment and higher prosperity. This has always happened within the UK itself. The evidence is that migration has neither reduced the unemployment rates of areas which lose population nor has it adversely affected unemployment rates of areas which have gained population. If anything it is to the contrary.

It may well be that a more independent UK will decide to limit immigration. If it does that will be for other than economic reasons.

I am very interested in tour figure of 500,000 extra jobs from US levels of energy cost. I don’t think energy costs can be mainly blamed on the EU. It was, after all, the UK Parliament which almost unanimously passed Mr Miliband;s “Climate Change” Act – by far the most expensive legislation ever produced.

I have previously, here and elsewhere, shown that 98% of our electricity cost is state regulatory parasitism. If cutting costs by about 50% as per the US would create 500,000 jobs presumably cutting it 98% would either (arithmetically) produce a million or (geometric growth) far more.

Tim Congdon of UKIP has also calculated the EU effect on jobs and concluded that oyr opt outs from the social chapter are responsible for us having a 7% better employment rate – meaning 2 million jobs & presumably we would be significantly better off out.

Of course your figures and his are dealing with non-overlapping qualities and presumably both are correct, making the total well ahead of 2.5 million extra non-governmental jobs and a proportionate (app 20%) increase in non-governmental gdp.

This takes no account of the increase in gdp growth bovver the long term we could expect. If China and India can manage 10% without being anything close to a free market ideal I think we could do better than that with cheap energy and low regulation.

I have previously, here and elsewhere, shown that 98% of our electricity cost is state regulatory parasitism.

At present energy prices are 16-18p per kilowatt, so if 98% of energy costs are due to the state a kilowatt should cost 0.32-0.36p to produce. Care to provide some evidence that energy can be produced this cheaply.

Tim Congdon of UKIP has also calculated the EU effect on jobs and concluded that oyr opt outs from the social chapter are responsible for us having a 7% better employment rate – meaning 2 million jobs & presumably we would be significantly better off out.

Did he also calculate why Germany has lower levels of unemployment than the UK yet hasn’t opted out of the social chapter?

Also which 3 of these opt-outs has the greatest effect on unemployment? If Tim Congdon has performed calculations he should be able to determine the affect each opt-out has.

If China and India can manage 10% without being anything close to a free market ideal I think we could do better than that with cheap energy and low regulation.

China and India are having high growth because they’re developing countries going through a period of industrialisation, something the UK can’t replicate because we’re already a developed country.

You have said rubbish like this before and never previously produced evidence.

1 – I have, as stated, already done so. You are at liberty to say why you didn’t disagree then.

2 – By definition an average has units which are lower than average as well as those above. That is in the nature of the beast. Check it out.

3 -You have repeatedly made this assertion and repeatedly refused to produce any evidence for it. History shows quite clearly that richer countries tend to grow faster than poorer ones. Thus we can grow at at least Chinese rates any time we get rid of the Luddite parasitism you so eagerly endorse.

If you had any proof whatsoever for your assertion you would have produced it long ago. Nonetheless I am sure we can both accept it as representing the very closest to honest the eco (enthusiasts ed) aspire to. please acknowledge that you will never imply that anything you or any eco(enthusiasts ed) ever say should be treated as more honest.

Maybe I’m missing something but I can’t see any any correlation bewteen energy prices and prosperity within the EU.

Having said that, I agree that high energy costs aren’t desirable. An expansion of nuclear power, is a better alternative to fossil, wind and solar, and the evidence on safety and cost is certainly there to support that statement.

The proper comparison is between growth in energy use and economic growth though change in use varies inversely with change in price which is why it is a good proxy. It is also worth looking beyond the EU. For example China’s electricity production has grown almost exactly 10% a year for 35 years and gdp growth has been almost exactly the same. We are reducing electricity use and have been in recession.

Martin is also right that CO2 measurement is of recent origin. Measurement of Greenland ice is a proxy for such measurement and on a year by year basis not a very good one, so assertions that CO2 were low a century ago are unproven (which doesn’t stop alarmists asserting them and saying they aren’t disproven – this is the process alarmists use as an alternative to science).

Another example of such scaremongering based on non-existent measurements was the ozone one. “Scientists” say a reduction in ozone in the Antarctic, probably caused by the volcano Mt Erebus, and extrapolated the rate of chane both forwards and backwards “proving” it must be rising massively if it had been rising massively for a long time. it hadn’t.

Neil Craig: “You have said rubbish like this before and never previously produced evidence.”

The machine that posts under the pseudonym uname5 can never produce anything resembling evidence to support its wild unfounded accusations. For example,

His claim that CO2 concentrations had doubled in the last one hundred years, would seem to be a fairly simple assertion to corroborate, but when challenged on several occasions to provide the plot of the atmospheric CO2 concentrations since 1913, it has been unable to do so.

I even looked it up myself and found CO2 in the atmosphere had been plotted since 1958, but there doesn’t seem to be anything prior to that, so uanime5’s assertion that CO2 had doubled since 1913 is not open to independent verification.

As such, that assertion, like most everything else he posts is mostly emotional leftie boilerplate rubbish.

You are right in saying that atmospheric CO2 records have been kept since 1958. Before that the evidence is based on measurements from ice cores taken in Antarctica. Tiny bubbles of air trapped in the ice can be measured for CO2 levels and the depth of the ice gives a measure of how old they are.

Prior to the industrial age CO2 levels were fairly constant at about 280ppmv . The level now is 400ppmv. So that means an increase of 400/280 = 1.43 or 43%

I’m sure I can find you plenty of references to show that the pre-industrial level of CO2 was 280ppmv. And that its now 400ppmv. So on CO2 levels alone its not correct to say they have doubled. Let me know if you are sceptical on those figures.

As far as the GH effect is concerned there are other gases which contribute besides CO2. The main ones being methane and nitrous oxide. They can be assigned a CO2 equivalence and if we add these in then CO2e=508.8ppmv

petermartin2000: “They can be assigned a CO2 equivalence and if we add these in then CO2e=508.8ppmv”

But these include the natural sources of CO2, Methane, Oxides of Sulphur, dust into the atmosphere, from active volcanoes like Mt Etna, Vesuvius, Mt St Helens, Eyjafjallajökull, and Krackatoa erruption in 1883, loads more too numerous to mention.

You appear to attributing the rise in CO2 entirely to anthropogenic sources. Clearly CO2 and other ‘so called’ GH gasses get into the atmosphere through very significant natural sources too.

That’s if we swallowed the whole CO2 is evil, which sensible people don’t.

Scientists noticed in the middle of the 19th century that the Earth was warmer than could be explained on the basis of radiation calculations. In fact if you had infra red detector in outer space and pointed it at the Earth you would measure a temperature of approximately -18deg C , on average, which is corresponds to the temperature about 10,ooo feet high where it is cooler. This is because the atmosphere is slightly opaque to IR radiation.

Temperature measured at the surface is about 15degC or 33 deg higher. This is known as the Greenhouse effect , which isn’t a good name because real greenhouses work somewhat differently.

Its the opaqueness of Co2 and water vapour which cause it. If there were no CO2 the temperature would be much colder and the entire GH effect would disappear. The colder temperatures would cause water vapour to condense out too. The Earth would turn into an ice-ball.

So CO2 is a good thing. But you can have too much of a good thing! If we don’t want the climate to change we need to do what we can to keep CO2 levels under control.

It rather amazes me because in the early 60’s I went hay bailing (lifting) and earned more in a week than the RAF then paid me as a radio fitter. My wife also went to the spud fields of Lincs to help with the 1st mortgage etc.

With immigration and to some extent modernisation I doubt I could repeat that.

So why can we still not employ our own similarly…still, after all the schemes over the years since. Government giving over to loonies by chance?

Dead simple, a Lincs spud farmer will probably tell you the same as a Californian grape rancher told me. He has to use Mexicans because the locals will not touch that sort of work, its too hard, too demeaning, I get a section 8 (UK equiv council) house and a load of free money from that state, so why should I bother?

Well you can’t expect people to work in a difficult and dangerous job for minimum wage when there are minimum wage jobs that are less demanding and dangerous. By contrast immigrants are happy to work for minimum wage because it’s worth a lot more in their home country than it is in the UK.

He’s making the point that faced with a choice of two minimum wage jobs, say working in a cafe where it’s warm and dry, and working out in the fields where it’s cold and wet, the rational choice for most people would be a no brainer.

Telegraph: “Immigration crackdown made us ‘nasty Britain’, says Osborne’s father-in-law”
‘Nasty’ seems to be a favoured word amongst Conservatives at Westminster. What world is this deluded man (another of your party colleagues) inhabiting? There has been no crackdown in overall immigration and cannot be whilst we are imprisoned in the EU. As Mr Farage told us “485 million people have the total, unconditional right to come to this country.” What are you going to do to remove that right?

Is anybody really going to pay attention to yet another dim witted old Etonian? If you really want to confuse him ask him where the Lancashire coast is on a map of the UK. Remember this “howler” from last year?

“In July 2013, he said, in a Lords’ discussion on fracking, “there are large, uninhabited and desolate areas, certainly in parts of the north-east, where there is plenty of room for fracking, well away from anybody’s residence, and where it could be conducted without any threat to the rural environment”. After much adverse reaction, he apologised, and said he was thinking of drilling off the Lancashire coast, not the north-east. He went on to say he wanted the derricks in “unloved places”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Howell,_Baron_Howell_of_Guildford

Jobs either in or out of the EU and energy prices are something I simply cannot make my mind up about.If we can get cheaper energy else where, then why don’t we? What happened to nuclear energy.I remember Tony Blair commenting that with extra safety precautions it was probably the only satisfactory way to sustain energy supplies.
I still believe though that we need to concentrate on natural sources.

I have only ever voted Tory. Not now its, UKIP. We have been sold down the river. Menbership of the EU suits politicians and large companies but not the people. We have nothing to gain from membership as we have seen. I want a say on this once and for all.

Dear energy has led to the closure of petrochemical plants, aluminium smelting, steel and other heavy energy using capacity.

According to Ofgen expensive energy is due to energy companies quadrupling their profits since 2009, not the EU.

Dear energy has led to the closure of petrochemical plants, aluminium smelting, steel and other heavy energy using capacity.

I thought these industries provided few jobs because they were mostly automated, which is why they require so much energy.

If we had US levels of energy prices on the back of more domestic production of oil, gas and shale gas and German style coal fired power stations, we could have 15% more jobs in manufacturing or around 450,000 extra jobs.

To have US levels of energy prices we’d need to extract US levels of shale gas at US prices, something that’s unlikely as the geology of the UK makes this gas more difficult to extract.

Also how are you calculating the number of extra jobs based on energy prices? According to the Telegraph the UK has the fifth lowest energy prices in the EU and the second lowest gas prices. So unless these 450,000 extra jobs are all going to come from the 4 EU countries that currently have lower energy costs it’s unlikely that so many jobs will be created.

I have a hard time believing big number promises from either side without underlying facts and data. The simple fact is you need customers to support jobs so who are the new customers that will support all these new jobs?

As a start our own government and public sector might bias towards purchasing UK manufactured goods, after all this policy has worked very well for Germany, France, the US …

About John Redwood

John Redwood won a free place at Kent College, Canterbury, He graduated from Magdalen College Oxford, has a DPhil and is a fellow of All Souls College. A businessman by background, he has been a director of NM Rothschild merchant bank and chairman of a quoted industrial PLC.